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Topic: IPTV multicast and ERS (Read 6854 times)

I am having an issue in IPTV multicast. My Data network consists of ERS 8600, 8300, and 4500. Two Ers 8600 – forming SMLT cluster at the Core Layer and two 8300-smlt cluster at the distribution and Ers 4500 stack at the edge. Attached is the logical layout.

IPTV server (source) is connected to one of the ERS 8300-Dist-Sw. currently multicast is flowing and can see the videos without any issues. But the problem is when I press the Channel UP/Down button in the remote one by one, videos are not displaying consecutively and after some time suddenly one channel will come , ie; channels in between are missing . for example : if I press the UP button while viewing the channel 235.1.1.3 ( say channel 3) then nothing will come on the TV , again if I press UP ..No display ... after some time it may display the channel 17 or channel 20 .. Channels in between are skipping. . I have allocated around 100 of channels sequentially from 235.1.1.1-100.

I have captured the traffic going in and out of the Set-TOP BOX.. And the observation is as follows.

1) For the channel that are not displaying, set-top BOX is not sending IGMP Join reports.2) But for some channels without any IGMP request, packets are flowing to the Set-TOP box from the server. At that time set-top box will hung .here I have doubt. Is there anything wrong in the switching configuration or it’s something related to IPTV devices. 3) Strange is that the above (Line 2) issue is not happening all the time. But channel skipping is always there.

IPTV-capture1: where packets are flowing to Set-TOP box ( IP : 10.0.1.110) without any IGMP request from the server ( IP 10.0.0.201) . I was watching channel 3 ( 235.1.1.3 ) and then I tried to see channel 4 ,5,6,7........etc. nothing is coming in screen till channel 17 ( 235.1.1.17) ..

IPTV-capture2 ( a,b,c,d) : while seeing 235.1.1.17, I changed the channel and nothing was displayed in the screen till channel 22 (235.1.1.22) . Here i can see there is no request from Set-TOP box for those missing channels and but in capture I can see still the flow of 235.1.1.17 and again I press the UP button , then cahnnel 23-26 is missing and 27 statrted viewing .. but still the capture is showing all the packets : 235.1.1.17,22,and 24 ... IPTV-CAPTURE2.A : will show 235.1.1.22 Join requestIPTV-CAPTURE2-B will show the 22 leave request IPTV-CAPTURE2-C will show how the 24 statred flowing ( with out any IGMP join request ,pcakets are flowing from server ) . capture shows some error as well.IPTV-CAPTURE2-D : will show 27 Join request.

Kindly help me... revert back to me for any clarification or correct me if I am wrong in my observations.

You've provided a lot of great information in your post and unfortunately I don't have the time right now to provide a detail response, however, I do have a quick question.

What version of software are you running on the switches that are involved in your Multicast traffic?

Cheers!

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1) regarding the unwanted mulicast flow from server to client , yesterday I found that those affected switches were not configured for "unknow multicast flood disabled " : after i enabled that , I am not seeing those packets in my capture,.. any way I am observing it .

2) regarding the missing channels: As I mentioned Set-Top Box is not even requesting for those channel.. do you think something we need to do on the switches ?

Our site experienced a somewhat similar issue with attempting to push our providers IPTV product across the network. In our case the video would freeze after about 5-10 seconds. All of the channel information and other similar content worked fine but as soon as you changed channel the video would play and then freeze. If you took the 5520 out of the picture and connected the set top box to the integrated switch on the provider's router it worked great.

We had seen a similar issue with some patient monitors so I knew it was related to multicast. In this case, we had created a new VLAN for the video service as it would only have a couple of televisions connected initially, so we did not require multicast routing.

IGMP snooping and proxy were enabled but it did not help. I had to change the IGMP version from a default of 1 to version 3. Once that was done we had a rock solid video stream. We now have the providers router connected to a 5530/20 stack that connects to our Cisco core and from there we have a set top box in two locations connected to 5520 stacks in two closets.

Note that you must set the IGMP version via command prompt or DM...there is not an option via the menu shell to set it. Command line:

today I had a same problem with similar infrastructure. I activated the IGMPv3 on the VLAN Interface, flushed the Multicast Router and restated the TV Box. After that I was able to see all channels.On the 2nd ERS is still working IGMPv2 and it works without any problems. FW is the same, I don't understand this:Operational Software: FW:5.6.2.1 SW:v5.6.3.025Installed software: FW:5.6.2.1 SW:v5.6.3.025